THE TRUE KING OF DAHAAR(72)

                “Sleep, habeebi,” he whispered, and walked out of her suite without looking back.

                His heart, finally, felt like a hard rock inside his chest. Something he had been struggling to achieve for six long years.





                                      CHAPTER TWELVE

                NIKHAT JERKED AWAKE from a fitful sleep and struggled to find her bearings. Her eyes were gritty. Sweat beaded her brow and her sheets were tangled around her hips. Unease weighed in her stomach and she turned to check the time. The little digital alarm clock said 5:00 a.m. Pushing the sheets away, she stepped down from the bed, lethargy making her slow.

                Her body ached between her legs. Her abdomen was stiff, as if she had done a hundred push-ups, her arms hurt, too.

                But it was more an exquisite soreness than any real pain and worth every bit.

                For several seconds, she stood there, her vision dizzying, everything Azeez had said slamming back into her like pieces of a puzzle. The picture that emerged knocked the breath out of her.

                I deserved the truth, Nikhat.

                How did he know?

                Her heart stuttered, struggling to keep up with her emotions. She changed into a caftan and leggings and grabbed a shawl to wrap around her torso.

                The palace corridors were empty, eerie, and she couldn’t shake off the impression that she was going to her doom.

                No, she wasn’t going to think like that. She shoved aside the anxiety and hugged the relief that danced under that. Somehow, Azeez had learned the truth now. He was entitled to his anger.

                But when his initial shock receded, he would surely understand why she had made the decision to leave him all those years ago. He had to. She wouldn’t think about it any other way, she couldn’t bear to.

                Halting outside his suite’s door, she sucked in a deep breath and clutched the edges of the shawl tight.

                Everything inside her felt as if it hung in the balance, every minute of her life, every decision she had made falling away like sand sinking away under one’s toes.

                She pushed the door and struggled against the dazzling glare of light.

                Approximately twenty men were inside the room, talking in small groups, some at laptops, some taking notes from Ayaan, she realized.

                Had she been so lost in her own fears that she hadn’t even heard a single voice?

                Her heart pounded so loudly that for a few minutes all she could hear was the thundering beat of it in her ears. She felt her face heat as a sound escaped her mouth. One by one, the faces turned, the hushed whispers died down, shock and astonishment and even disapproval at her presence marring the strange faces.

                For a dizzying second, Nikhat thought she would collapse under the weight of her own anxiety. Run, move, hide.

                Her brain was issuing the standard flight responses, triggering fear in her, because she was standing outside the prince’s wing, a wing that was forbidden to women, at the crack of dawn, her hair flowing behind her, clad in nothing but an old caftan and leggings, her eyes red-rimmed with the tears she had shed, her mouth and neck still bearing the evidence of his kisses.

                And behind all of them, sitting in a gold-edged armchair covered in red velvet, his dark gaze calmly observing her, without anger, without any expression, really, was Azeez.